Killer Instinct to Feature a Free Character Rotation

In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Killer Instinct’s Ken Lobb sat down and discussed their plans for the upcoming title, including the multiple bundles that will be available at launch and how they will handle future content releases. While much of this information has been talked about in the past at one point or another, Lobb did drop a tidbit about the free version that should interest those who aren’t looking to buy the full game outright.

Much like League of Legends, which features a new assortment of free characters to play with every week, Double Helix Games and Microsoft are looking into replacing Killer Instinct’s initial free character (Jago) with another a little ways down the line. This will allow players who have stuck with the game’s free demo or made minimal purchases to try out a new character every few months or so.

Whether this fits into their tentative plans to provide players a way to try characters before purchasing is as of yet unknown, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. Be sure to visit Eurogamer to read the full interview and let us know what you think of this news in the comments below.

This is terrible news for Jago mains who wouldn’t have had to buy the game otherwise.

Glenn Vaughn

They could’ve just put an in game trial for each character. Limit 5 use per or something

daddy_phat_sacs

TJ Combo….Biotch!!!!!

Watts

That’s *President* TJ Combo, for those us from back in the day.

Inan

Okay, this is an improvement. I’m not one complaining about this game, but that’s one complaint knocked down from their list, right? inb4 PS4 cries.

Travis Lynn

This is what I see in the future of gaming in general. Different models for different gamers. Ouya though doesn’t seem to be catching on had the idea of always giving something away free to your customers that way they know that you can deliver, seems next-gen is catching on.

Sentsuizan

A good step in the right direction. Now fix the actual gameplay.

Cat Astrophy

Explain, please. It seems a lot more accessible and deeper than any previous KI.

Sentsuizan

It’s not just accessible, it’s dumbed down and simplistic. But then I haven’t played it yet so I could be wrong.

Robert 10stars Brejcak

it is accessible, that’s what dumbed down and simplistic means. there’s depth to the game at higher levels, it isn’t do 3 hit combos to avoid breakers anymore.

Inan

Accessible doesn’t automatically mean dumbed-down: it could mean smarter game design, e,g., using arrow keys to move an in-game character rather than QWOP.

Or maybe dumbing down could count as smarter game design?

Robert 10stars Brejcak

I didn’t say that Accessible automatically means dumbed down, I said that dumbed down means accessible. Plenty of games are accessible without being dumbed down from their previous releases. Re read my initial post, you’re confused.

Inan

You’re right. My apologies.

blackavengre

When parries and an actual juggle recognition message return, ill agree about the depth. The latter’s cosmetic and means nowt, but parries are awesome and need to come back somehow

vastreammonster

I actually suggested this idea on the Killer Instinct boards. Good to see someone has a brain over there as it would have been unfair to be forced to play only Jagos online. Now there will be monthly variety for these free folk.

Cat Astrophy

No different than League of Legends (only the most popular PC game, so they knew about this long before anyone posted an idea about it). Sell chars to play, rotate what you can try out weekly. They only have a few chars to play as in KI so the rotations taking longer are expected.

Trevor Clarke

What I’m the only one who sees something wrong with this?

I mean the fighting game with Microtransactions thing is already bad enough, but now with an outstanding roster of 8 characters (and maybe 6 more for a total of 14), there shall be those who are free to play for like a week…

Why not just sell the game as a retail package and I don’t know make every fighter free to play? And worry about supporting actual things the game would need like balance, online, PR.

Morieris

It’s called the Ultra Edition. Buy that, and don’t worry about the F2P stuff until season 2 comes out (which would be in the next year, about the same time frame that SF4/MvC3 got upgrades).

Grimbear13

…The game can be bought so you don’t have to buy individual characters… You just can’t buy a disc for it, it’s digital only. So…I’m not sure what you’re complaining about there. And you just seem to be missing out and jumbling up all of the information. There will be 6 chars at launch 2 more + story mode in the following months. Then if the game is successful Season 2 will include a bunch of improvements and characters AND will be stand alone if you don’t want to buy Season 1, but if you own both you have access to all of the content.

It’s probably the best pricing model I’ve seen on a fighting game thus far so I’m really confused why people are still flaming it.

Trevor Clarke

Because giving players 2 options on how to pay is BAD. Having them able to pay only a portion of the price instead of just a full $60 release can put them in the hole. Not to mention if free week rolls around and they’re fighter stays in the free play lineup for multiple weeks, payment not required.

Grimbear13

Okay, well I’m sure they figured out the logistics of this and figured this payment method would work. Also why is multiple options for payment a bad idea? More options seems like a better idea.

Additionally they knew they couldn’t get a game worth $60 in the time window that MS gave them so they charge $20, $40 for a CE basically and a free mode for people who are apprehensive about the game. Put it in their hands and let them get a REAL feel for the game instead of what most demos are now a days so maybe they get hooked and drop anywhere from $5 to $20 on the game just seems to make sense…

JELIFISH19

Because not everyone is going to pay $60 for a fighting game. And most people don’t play as all of the characters. It’s a way to get people into the game. The only way to currently fighting games it to buy them. It’s easy for us to say that’s a better model because we’re the type of players who buy fighting games and enjoy them. But a lot of people aren’t like that. Those people get access to everything with one character for free. That’s much better for them. If they want to play as a different character, they only have to pay $5. I’ve never picked more than 2 characters in some games. If those games used KI’s model, I would have only spent $10 rather than the full $60. The game is getting everything that a full retail release has but players don’t have to pay a full retail price if they don’t want to.

Look at it this way. If SF4 was F2P, a Ryu player likely would have never had to pay anything ever. If there’s an option of not paying anything versus $60 and updates, I’m pretty sure free wins every time. Jago players will never have to spend a dime on KI if they don’t want. I don’t see anything bad about that.

Trevor Clarke

it’s kind of unnecessary and WILL cost them money

Cause money says someone will hack the free version.

So they better put in a Pink Scorpion

Amer1ka

DH is seriously making some excellent decisions with KI. In a couple of years KI could be a monster in the FGC if everything is done right despite the issues of it being on a somewhat lamented console.